(highlight:: Anne Fernold's Discovery of Universal Melodies of Praise, Discouragement, Southing, Etc
Summary:
Anne Fernold traveled the world recording parents talking to their babies and discovered that below the words, the melodies were consistently the same.
Different melodies were used to praise, stop, call attention, and comfort. It seems that infants understand this music, and it feels more like touch than words.
Sound is like touch at a distance.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Anne Fernold took her tape recorder from that hospital and traveled all over the world, recording parents as they talked to their very little babies. And it didn't matter whether the parents spoke a romance language or a tone language everywhere she went below the words she heard consistently the same melodies.
Speaker 6
For example, when a parent wanted to praise a child, we would ask the parents to show the baby they were happy. Just using their voice, show them you're happy with that. And what these things had in common was that the melody was a kind of a rise fall. Damn.
Speaker 5
Good girl.
Speaker 4
Good girl. You got it. Yeah. Good girl, sweetie.
Speaker 2
So it doesn't matter what words the parents are saying, it's always really about this melody.
Speaker 1
And why that particular melody?
Speaker 2
All she knows is it works.
Speaker 6
There's something about this melody that keeps the child doing something. There are, she says, other categories she discovered. Now with a prohibition in contrast, your goal is to stop the child from doing something. The category that says stop. Quite a different melody. It's short. It's sharp. In musical terms it's staccato.
Speaker 2
There is the category of look, pay attention to that. No, this frequently used rising pitch.
Speaker 6
Look, look sweetie. They frequently use higher pitch. A unicorn?
Speaker 3
A unicorn?
Speaker 2
So far, Anne Fernald has found four universal melodies that praise, that stop, that call attention and of course the melody that comforts. And while this may seem obvious to you, if you think about it, this is music that is understood by infants who are just new in the world. But we all know what it means.
Speaker 6
But we all know these songs. We're used to thinking of sounds as being about something. Speech is always about something. But it feels to me more like touch. Touch isn't about something. If you whack me on the arm in a sudden sharp way, I'm going to be startled. Or a gentle touch has a different effect. And I think actually sound is kind of touch at a distance.)
- Time 0:28:59
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(highlight:: How sound travels from the air to your brain
Summary:
Sound waves travel through space and time from your voice box into the ear.
Vibrating air enters the ear drum and causes tiny bones to vibrate, transmitting the sound to hair cells in a salty sea. These hair cells activate when bent, triggering charged molecules and creating electrical signals.
This is the language of neurons.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
How does sound get into or touch your brain? Take us on that journey.
Speaker 5
It's just waves of vibrating air. It's just your voice. Beginning your voice box compresses air, and that air travels through space and time.
Speaker 1
Into my ear.
Speaker 5
The little ton of waves of diffuse vibrating air, focused and channeled. Into my ear drum. Each vibrates a few very small bones. And the little bones transmit the vibration into this salty sea, where the hairs are. And the hair cells are fasting. The hair cells become active when they are literally bent by way. They bend like trees and a breeze. And when these hair cells bend, charged molecules, flood inwards, and activate the cell.
Speaker 2
So, the sound triggers the bones, the bones disturbs the fluid, the fluid rocks the hairs. Yes. And then the hair is set off essentially electricity? Yes.
Speaker 5
Huh. That's the language of neurons.)
- Time 0:32:19
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(highlight:: How Sounds are Electrically Perceived Determines Our Inclination Towards Them
Summary:
Regular and rhythmic electricity creates a pleasant sound, like a perfect fifth in music.
However, irregular and chaotic electricity creates an unpleasant sound, like a minor second. There is a relationship between the type of electricity a sound produces and how it makes us feel.
Scientists refer to pleasant sounds as consonant and unpleasant sounds as dissonant.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
When the meter of the electricity is regular and rhythmic, it will arrive in our mind and be heard by us as a sound that we generally like. Like this. Nice sound.
Speaker 7
That in music is known as a perfect fifth. The inputs coming from a perfect fifth is very, very regular.
Speaker 1
Like a metronome. However, and here's where it gets interesting, when the meter going from the ear to the brain is irregular. Jagged. A rhythmic. Unpredictable. Strange. Let me hear it. This is the jagged.
Speaker 6
This is the jagged. Oh, I'll just... Yeah, I guess...
Speaker 1
Yeah, and what Mark has discovered is that when electrical impulses like that travel from the ear to the brain, they will become heard by us, by our mind, as a sound that we generally don't Like. Like that. Don't care for that one. That's a minor second.
Speaker 7
The inputs coming from a minor second is very, very chaotic.
Speaker 2
Okay, so let me just sum up here, what I think you're saying. If a sound entering my brain is disorderly and unexpected... Electrically speaking. Electrically speaking, then that would make me feel uncomfortable. Yeah. And if it comes in in a familiar and orderly way, that will make me feel comfortable. There does seem to be a relationship between the kind of electricity a sound produces and how we feel about that sound. Do they have like fancy names for this?
Speaker 1
Well that's a minor second.
Speaker 2
That thing you just heard. But do the scientists have names for pleasant and unpleasant?
Speaker 1
Consonant is pleasant, dissonant is unpleasant.)
- Time 0:36:05
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